Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor at The Washington Post, has had a notably undistinguished career since the day he arrived back in 2000. From being an Iraq War cheerleader to a deficit peacock and a climate change denier enabler, his influence on the paper's editorial board has been disastrous. It should come as no surprise to readers that his op-ed page has showed yet again how tone-deaf they are with this clunker: "Congress should stop attacking DeJoy and consider his plan to fix the Postal Service."
You don't have to read past the headline to know how off-the-mark Hiatt's board is this time around. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's plan is not to "fix" the Postal Service, but to make the Postal Service provide more expensive and worse service to its customers. He wants postage to cost more and delivery to be significantly slower, plain and simple. And his motives in doing so are as transparent as can be. DeJoy's efforts are costing the USPS money and driving away customers. Many who do business via the USPS will switch to private carriers, some of which DeJoy has a personal financial stake in.
Corruption and corporate bias aside, Hiatt's editorial board is ignoring
the very real harm DeJoy's cutbacks could bring to millions of people
who rely on the post office, particularly communities of color,
low-income communities, and postal service workers. The editorial board
dismisses those concerns, saying: "the Postal Service hasn't regularly been
meeting its targets since long before Mr. DeJoy’s time anyway." So it seems Hiatt's argument is "It's bad already, so what the hell, let's make it worse." If you want credible commentary and serious journalism, subscribe to the New York Times!
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